Background: Treating medication-refractory freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease remains challenging despite several trials reporting improvements in motor symptoms using subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation. Pedunculopontine nucleus region DBS has been used for medication-refractory FoG, with mixed findings. FoG, as a paroxysmal phenomenon, provides an ideal framework for the possibility of closed-loop DBS.Methods: In this clinical trial, five subjects with medication-refractory FoG underwent bilateral GPi DBS implantation to address levodopa-responsive PD symptoms with open-loop stimulation. Additionally, PPN (...) DBS leads were implanted for CL-DBS to treat FoG. The primary outcome of the study was a 40% improvement in medication-refractory FoG in 60% of subjects at 6 months when “on” PPN CL-DBS. Secondary outcomes included device feasibility to gauge the recruitment potential of this four-lead DBS approach for a potentially larger clinical trial. Safety was judged based on adverse events and explantation rate.Findings: The feasibility of this approach was demonstrated as we recruited five subjects with both “on” and “off” medication freezing. The safety for this population of patients receiving four DBS leads was suboptimal and associated with a high explantation rate of 40%. The primary clinical outcome in three of the five subjects was achieved at 6 months. However, the group analysis of the primary clinical outcome did not reveal any benefit.Interpretation: This study of a human PPN CL-DBS trial in medication-refractory FoG showed feasibility in recruitment, suboptimal safety, and a heterogeneous clinical effect in FoG outcomes. (shrink)

In Spoils of War, a diverse group of distinguished contributors suggest that acts of aggression resulting from the racism and sexism inherent in social institutions can be viewed as a sort of "war," experienced daily by women of color.

For almost 50 years, the Council of Europe through a series of documents has been helping to build up a set of rules, principles, and strategies related to culture, environment, ethics, and sustainable development. At the moment, one of the most important aims of the Council of Europe’s agenda deals with the elaboration of the General Principles for the Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development, as raised in document CO-DBP (2003)2 related to the environmental subject. The intention of the (...) Council of Europe is to encourage national authorities to implement these General Principles into their national environmental policies. These principles should have an important effect, especially in those countries which are new members of the European Union. The primary target of this paper is the study of these principles and the setting of their entailed implications in order to establish a relation between values and policy making. Quite often, the conclusions adopted by the agreements generated within the framework of the European Union are controversial. Therefore, a study aiming to lay the foundations of these principles will make the exchange of ideas easier, providing a wider and more detailed scope in the European environmental policy. (shrink)

Graduates of doctoral programs are expected to be competent at designing and conducting research independently. Given the level of research competence needed to successfully conduct research, it is important that assessors of doctoral programs have a reliable and validated tool for measuring and tracking perceived research competence among their students and graduates. A high level of research competence is expected for all Ph.D. graduates worldwide, in addition to in all disciplines/fields. Moreover, graduates of Ph.D. programs may complete their studies in (...) one country but then obtain a research position in another country, emphasizing the need to ensure that all doctoral programs are fostering similar levels of research competence. Thus, the purpose of this study was to gather additional evidence for validity and reliability of the Research Competence scale. Specifically, we sought to extend the findings of by adapting the scale, translating it to other languages, and applying the tool with a sample of early stage researchers. Our findings provide initial evidence that the adapted PR-Comp is appropriate for use in three languages and across a variety of disciplines/programs of study. (shrink)

Turing was an exceptional mathematician with a peculiar and fascinating personality and yet he remains largely unknown. In fact, he might be considered the father of the von Neumann architecture computer and the pioneer of Artificial Intelligence. And all thanks to his machines; both those that Church called “Turing machines” and the a-, c-, o-, unorganized- and p-machines, which gave rise to evolutionary computations and genetic programming as well as connectionism and learning. This paper looks at all of these and (...) at why he is such an often overlooked and misunderstood figure. (shrink)

The problem of knowledge evolution has received considerable attention over the years. Mainly, the study of the dynamics of knowledge has been addressed in the area of Belief Revision, a field emerging as the convergence of the efforts in Philosophy, Logic, and more recently Computer Science, where research efforts usually involve “flat” knowledge bases where there is no additional information about the formulas stored in it. Even when this may be a good fit for particular applications, in many real-world scenarios (...) different information items may be attached to formulas. For instance, when the reliability of the source of the piece of information is attached to it as a measure of some quality (e.g., strength) of the piece of information itself, or when some characteristic informs us on the desirability of the item (e.g., the potential benefit that could be obtained from it). If this type of information is available, we can use it to guide how the belief base is to be modified when new information arrives. In this work, we present a novel approach to the contraction of knowledge bases where formulas have values attached that measure some quality linked to those formulas, exploiting it to define their desirability, and uses such desirability to define which formulas need to be removed to solve conflicts. In this context, we introduce a set of properties for contraction operators by extending classic approaches. We also show how the local treatment of minimal conflicts can induce some counter-intuitive contractions, and we present a way to avoid them by considering optimal resolutions of conflicts using the additional information encoded. We show how the proposed formalization captures any contraction that is optimal under a set of features. Finally, we present a refinement based on the identification of related minimal conflicts that performs contraction in optimal ways without looking into the entire knowledge base. The approach is based on the use of the accrual of beliefs where several formulas collaboratively use their respective values to prevail in the resolution of conflicts. (shrink)

The distinctive security features of the Spanish electronic national identity card, known as Documento Nacional de Identidad electrónico, allow us to propose the usage of this cryptographic smart card in an authentication framework that can be used during the registration and login phases of internet services where the validation of the user’s age and real identity are key elements, as it is the case for example of the so-called social networks. Using this mechanism with NFC-capable devices, the identity and age (...) of the potential user can be determined, allowing or denying the access to the service based on that information. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of sound individuation (SI) and its connection to sound ontology (SO). It is argued that the problems of SI, such as aspatiality, extreme individuation, indexical perplexity and duration puzzles are due to SO’s uncertainties. Besides, I describe the views in SO, including the wave view (WV), the property view (PV), and the event view (EV), as Casey O’Callaghan defends it. According to O’Callaghan, EV offers clear standards to individuate sounds. However, this claim is countered by (...) the consideration that any view could also defend the standards in SO, and thus, EV does not solve any of the problems mentioned above. As a way of showing the difficulties inherited by sound’s inner ontology, the problem of its linguistic representation is also addressed. The problem of SI can be developed within the frame of the philosophy of language and, specifically, regarding the discussion about mass vs count-­sortal terms. Is the term sound a mass or a count­-sortal? It is shown that, for reasons pertaining SO, the decision regarding the case of sound as a mass or count-­sortal term remains open. SI is, thus, covered from the SO to the philosophy of language. (shrink)

ABSTRACT During the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing physical viruses infecting our bodies, virtual viruses infecting our computers, and symbolic viruses infecting our thinking. This essay takes up each of these interruptions in a collective attempt to better understand how we are rhetorically and where we might go politically from here.

We present nine facets for the analysis of the past and future evolution of AI. Each facet has also a set of edges that can summarise different trends and contours in AI. With them, we first conduct a quantitative analysis using the information from two decades of AAAI/IJCAI conferences and around 50 years of documents from AI topics, an official database from the AAAI, illustrated by several plots. We then perform a qualitative analysis using the facets and edges, locating AI (...) systems in the intelligence landscape and the discipline as a whole. This analytical framework provides a more structured and systematic way of looking at the shape and boundaries of AI. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard's thought remains a continual source of inspiration for a phenomenological psychology that takes human habitation as a fundamental given and as an abiding mystery of the human condition. the following essay explores the ideas Bachelard developed in the course of his study of poetry. It examines in particular his vision of imagination as a unique passage way by means of which we reach an inhabitable, intersubjective and fully human world. Within that perspective, our lives are constantly renewed by (...) the appearance of a revealing image or a telling metaphor. Each time that we are awakened by this appeal we commemorate the birth and rebirth of a human world. (shrink)

En la atención médica y en la investigación en salud resulta indispensable favorecer la toma de decisiones de los pacientes y/o participantes bajo el principio de autonomía. En particular, esta capacidad, consignada en la Convención de los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad, se concreta mediante la detección de necesidades de asistencia, ajustes y apoyos que dan paso a una plena y efectiva capacidad de ejercicio. Las reflexiones bioéticas hechas desde la perspectiva principialista, personalista y de los Derechos Humanos ofrecen (...) elementos para potenciar la autonomía de las personas con discapacidad, promoviendo la figura de asistencia personal y enfatizando el interés superior, la gradualidad y la revisión judicial permanente como principios de figuras sustitutivas. (shrink)

But the modelling of the Confucian gentleman or junzi type of human being under the music simile and the rules of propriety (li) 禮 needs to be brought within the perspective of the Confucian use of language and the ultimately harmonising role of this philosophy. Such considerations lead us back to a concept that Pound was always keen to produce in his expositions, and refers directly to the importance of precise language usage. Pound's first concern for 'le mot juste' and (...) later for zheng ming 正名 is consistent throughout his career. (shrink)

La educación es un ámbito de realidad susceptible de ser conocido. En el conocimiento de la educación se utilizan actualmente, teorías filosóficas, teorias prácticas, investigaciones aplicadas y se han generado ya términos propios con significación intrínseca a la educación. El conocimiento de la educación ha crecido a través dei tiempo. Se ha convertido en un conocimiento especializado. En este trabajo se aborda la distinción entre los conocimientos especializados de cada área cultural que se enseña y el conocimiento específico dei estúdio (...) de la educación como objeto de conocimiento. Además, se estudian diversos modelos de evolución dei conocimiento de la educación, enfatizando el interés y utilidad dei modelo de crecimiento. El trabajo insiste en la importancia del estudio de la relación teoría-práctica para obtener el conocimiento especializado y específico de la educación: el conocimiento pedagógico. Por último se establece una relación entre significación y conocimiento de la educación por medio de la capacidad de resolución de problemas para la intervención, y se debate su estructura y utilidad para la intervención a través de la relación teoría-práctica en cada mentalidad pedagógica (marginal, subalternada y autónoma). /// Education is a real area that people can know in a differents ways. Several types of knowledge and rationality are usefull for making knowledge of education. Philosophical theories, Practical theories, Applied research, let them built it. Even more, Knowledge of education has already made particular and specific concepts. Along the historical events, knowledge of education has grown. Actualy this knowledge is a specialized and specific one. Discusion wether education is a discipline, as Fisics or History has been not closed yet. This article set the state of art in that question in a different position: every way of getting knowledge of education has the same posibility for problem solving in pedagogical intervention? what kind of relation are there among the three following items: theory-practice conection; knowledge of education; pedagogic intervention?. This study stablish differences between knowledge of education and knowledge of disciplines which are used in teaching process. Besides, it enphasizes and upholds the "Educational Knowledge Growth Model". The second half of this work is carrying on to explain the different possibilities that each type of Knowledge of Education has in order to solve the problems which arise in the pedagogical intervention. All that has been maden by focussing the discussion about the theory-practice conection in three differents pedagogical mentalitys (Weltanschaaung or backgrounds): marginal, subalternated and autonomons one. (shrink)

College students have become more representative as blood donors, mainly to help other people. This study ascertained the association between spirituality and adherence or intention to donate blood in post-graduate students. In this quantitative and cross-sectional study, participants were 281 students from a post-graduate programme at a Brazilian public university. After complying with ethical requirements, data were collected through a questionnaire for sociodemographic characterization and identification of blood donation practices, followed by the Spiritual Well-Being Scale. Descriptive statistics and parametric tests (...) were used for data analysis. A total of 74% of the participants were female and 26% were male. Previous experience and/or intention to donate blood were found in 75.3%; 14.3% donated blood periodically. In addition, 12.2% were not adept to donation and 12.5% were inapt. Spiritual Well-Being scores were similar between individuals who are not adept and those who donate periodically. In conclusion, in the sample, spirituality and blood donation are not associated, but spiritual well-being and gender are. To enhance blood donation, further research is needed. (shrink)

De la identidad literaria salvadoreña como exilio, se examina la obra clásica de nueve autores. Al aplicar una perspectiva psicoanalítica, el ensayo toma como punto de partida una tarjeta que Roque Dalton envió desde Cuba a una amante lejana en El Salvador. La escritura establece la deuda y la memoria como principios rectores para recuperar el pasado. Un compromiso subjetivo con el objeto del amor perdido la patria y la amante dicta el movimiento de la inscripción poética. Esta ausencia del (...) cuerpo a recuperar se aplica en seguida, en primer lugar, a Francisco Gavidia, que funda el indigenismo salvadoreño, utilizando técnicas literarias europeas, con lo cual ignora las lenguas indígenas, luego a Alberto Masferrer, que se retrata sufriendo las tribulaciones y la pasión de Cristo en el exilio, antes de construir un proyecto político de país. En tercer lugar, Arturo Ambrogi percibe en el campesino salvadoreño al poeta medieval localizado en un locus amoenus, encantado por la belleza del campo. Francisco Miranda Ruano inaugura una visión más trágica, ya que su salida de la ciudad para recrear el esplendor del campo concluye con su regreso a los suburbios pobres, antes de suicidarse. En quinto lugar, Salarrué mezcla fantasía y realismo para retratar sus diversas máscaras o personajes, así como para disimular la violencia sexual y racial. Según el proverbio español “el hábito hace al monje”, el ser y los actos se juzgan siempre por la apariencia. Claudia Lars prescribe un movimiento dual, primero para sustituir su nombre real, Carmen Brannon, por su seudónimo literario, y luego para recuperar su infancia de sus habilidades adultas, que ella desarrolla, gracias al legado poético de su padre extranjero. Los hermanos Alfred y Miguel Ángel Espino proponen un patrimonio complejo. Si el primero idealiza el campo en una recuperación nostálgica del vientre materno cuya contrapartida nombra al amante imposible que lo inclina al suicidio, el segundo apunta a restituir una educación verdaderamente americana, sin revitalización alguna de las lenguas indígenas ni de su tierra ancestral confiscada. José Napoleón Rodríguez Ruiz estipula cómo solo un recuerdo lejano recupera un relato testimonial del pasado. Al vaticinar un tema de actualidad -el acoso sexual y la migración, su personaje campesino narra cómo el exilio reinventa su identidad rural. Finalmente, en un retorno sinodal, desde lejos, Dalton replica la nostalgia de Rubén Darío por ser alguien más de lo que es a la hora de recrear sus años de formación como poeta. En resumen, este bosquejo de nueve autores del siglo XX delinea no solo cómo una idea de exilio anticipa la diáspora actual. El ensayo también sugiere cómo los estudios culturales continúan una nostálgica recuperación de la memoria por una revolución sinódica, y reclama la actualidad de aquellos autores consagrados en un canon literario monolingüe. (shrink)

Understanding the mechanisms of early embryonic patterning and the timely allocation of specific cells to embryonic regions and fates as well as their development into tissues and organs, is a fundamental problem in Developmental Biology. The classical explanation for this process had been built around the notion of positional information. Accordingly the programmed appearance of sources of Morphogens at localized positions within a field of cells directs their differentiation. Recently, the development of organs and tissues from unpatterned and initially identical (...) stem cells (adult and embryonic) has challenged the need for positional information and even the integrity of the embryo, for pattern formation. Here we review the emerging area of organoid biology from the perspective of Developmental Biology. We argue that the events underlying the development of these systems are not purely linked to “self‐organization,” as often suggested, but rather to a process of genetically encoded self‐assembly where genetic programs encode and control the emergence of biological structures. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard's thought remains a continual source of inspiration for a phenomenological psychology that takes human habitation as a fundamental given and as an abiding mystery of the human condition. the following essay explores the ideas Bachelard developed in the course of his study of poetry. It examines in particular his vision of imagination as a unique passage way by means of which we reach an inhabitable, intersubjective and fully human world. Within that perspective, our lives are constantly renewed by (...) the appearance of a revealing image or a telling metaphor. Each time that we are awakened by this appeal we commemorate the birth and rebirth of a human world. (shrink)

We study the intersection number of families of tall ideals. We show that the intersection number of the class of analytic P-ideals is equal to the bounding number ${\mathfrak{b}}$ , the intersection number of the class of all meager ideals is equal to ${\mathfrak{h}}$ and the intersection number of the class of all F σ ideals is between ${\mathfrak{h}}$ and ${\mathfrak{b}}$ , consistently different from both.

The purpose of this paper is to study the philosophical basis of the architecture of two Artificial Intelligence systems (AlphaGo and Hide and Seek). The problem considers the elucidation of the epistemological distinction between “knowledge” and “intuition” and questions whether the fulfillment of a programmed metric can be considered as a product of knowledge or, as an example of intuitive thinking. Through the analysis of both examples, it is shown that achieving the desired objective (winning a game of Go and (...) developing new hiding strategies) is not derived from the system’s architecture, but from the AI’s creativity to achieve the desired result; in that sense, it can be confirmed that certain intelligent systems are capable of creative and intuitive thinking. El objetivo del presente artículo es estu- diar los fundamentos filosóficos de la arquitectura de programación en dos sistemas de Inteligencia Artificial (AlphaGo y Hide and Seek). El problema dilucida la distinción epistemológica de los concep- tos “conocimiento”, “intuición” y “abducción”, para definir si el cumplimiento exitoso de una métrica programada, por parte de una computadora, es con- dición suficiente para atribuirle un comportamiento inteligente. A través del análisis de ambos ejemplos se muestran dos cuestiones: i) el cumplimiento exitoso de un objetivo programado ofrece nuevos recursos de conocimiento, ii) dichos conocimientos dependen de la ejecución de un programa cuyo pro- cesamiento es desarrollado por una IA y, por tanto, las operaciones superan las capacidades intelectivas humanas. Las conclusiones apuntan a que las com- putadoras son recursos de conocimiento especiales de comprobación de hipótesis. (shrink)